UUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH. In case you guys don’t know who Ed Price is, he’s a national baseball writer for Fanhouse and might break more stories like this than anyone else. Just incredibly depressing, as I just posted about Zambrano’s strong start last night.

Not sure what to do about this. I don’t have any closers, so the chance that he usurps Carlos Marmol and steals saves doesn’t really affect me other than my enhanced ability to trade him. However, never underestimate the value of a consistently dominant middle reliever. Balancing out one’s ERA and WHIP while getting some K’s is always nice to have. Not as valuable as a good SP, but considering that there aren’t many of those out there on free agency at the moment, I’m going to hold on to him for the time being.

I promise a longer and more informative post coming later this evening. Just too angry right now to muster some bullets.

In case you haven’t read it enough, Jason Heyward has pretty much been deified on this site. More evidence continues to surface to corroborate my (and all of Atlanta’s) argument, as he hit a home run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to tie the Phillies, and the Braves would go on to win in extra innings, courtesy of a Nate McLouth walk-off job. Heyward now has four homers, and is tied for fourth in the majors in RBI with 16. He hits sixth in the Braves lineup still, inexplicably behind the useless Troy Glaus, who is hitting .200 with only 2 HR and 8 RBI. Move him up, Cox!

While The Say Hey Baby is trying his balls off to captain my teams onto the leaderboard, they continue to slip. The Loney Bones and Teamocil both lost points yesterday, falling to third and sixth respectively. My offenses, save for Heyward, have completely sputtered. It’s okay, the Hero’s Journey is never easy, but I shall prevail in the end.

Other thoughts on last night’s action:

Darnell McDonald single-handedly saved the Red Sox from themselves last night, hitting a game-tying two-run homer in the eighth and a walk-off single in the ninth. How ironic that a black player rescued the most racist organization in sports…hmm, maybe there is something to this whole integration dealy. For the record, Willie Harris yesterday said he had heard that Boston is a racist city, but said he didn’t experience it while he was there for a few months in 2006. However, since then, I can count the African American that have played for the Sox on one hand – Mike Cameron, Bill Hall, Joey Gathright, Coco Crisp and Royce Clayton. Other than Crisp, none of them played in 100 games, and Crisp was run out of town as soon as Jacoby Ellsbury came along (admittedly, that had more to do with talent than race). That number still strikes me as abysmally low. Just a gripe.

Matt Kemp is tied for the lead in the NL in homers and in the whole damn league in RBI. Remember just two years ago when he was struggling to get playing time because Joe Torre was set on playing Juan Pierre? The guy’s ridiculous, and by next March could be in the discussion for the number one overall pick. He’s also stolen two bases so far. I don’t want to get into what numbers he’s on pace for, but the numbers he’s likely to reach this year could be something like .310, 35 HR, 110 RBI, 100 R and 25 SB. In other words, just redonkalous numbers. Just redonkalous…

Jabula, who I’ve repeatedly trashed for his dealings with The Villain, overtook the lead from said Villain last night, and is free to bite his thumb at me. Kudos on streaming effectively thus far, but somehow I doubt when all is said and done Nelson Cruz will be leading the majors in HR and Jorge Cantu will do the same in RBI, both of whom are doing just that for his team. Enjoy it while it lasts, and I’ll at least take solace in the fact that no true Yankee fan owns Kevin Youkilis.

Carlos Zambrano of Teamocil made the Mets look foolish yesterday, allowing only a two-run triple to Jose Reyes in six innings, striking out nine. While his ERA and WHIP are, how you say, ATROCIOUS, he does have 26 strikeouts in 19.1 innings, which is phenomenal. The 7.45 ERA and 1.86 WHIP aren’t worth it at all, but if he can string together a couple of fine starts like last night’s, he’ll be fine. Remember, he’s never had a year in which his ERA has been above 3.95, so he’s got that going for him. Among his foolish-looking victims was Mets call-up Ike Davis, who’s had a history of strikeout issues in the minors, as detailed here. Acquire at your own risk.

Finally, Jeff Mathis went to the DL with a broken wrist, paving the way for HR-exclusive Mike Napoli, who was a Loney Bone, and made his triumphant return about 5 minutes ago. I say HR-exclusive because all he does is hit home runs. He has a career pace of one home run every 16.8 at-bats, which is about a half-AB less than Hank Aaron. So yeah, he’s pretty good at socking some dingers. If you have a need for home runs and don’t own Victor Martinez, Joe Mauer or Brian McCann, I would recommend picking him up.

Please comment below guys, we need ego-strokes.

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